Page 17 of Carrick
They didn’t push or pry. Just kept talking, tossing jokes back and forth, arguing over whether syrup belonged under the bacon or over the eggs. I let myself sit in the middle of it—chaosand caffeine wrapped in the warmth of people who weren’t asking me to be anything except full.
So I stayed. Drank the coffee. Ate the pancakes. Laughed at their bickering and rolled my eyes more than once. When Maddy leaned in to whisper something that made me snort into my mug, I didn’t flinch.
Maybe I could do this. Just for tonight.
Somewhere between the third round of pancakes and the fifth terrible pun, I realized I wasn’t pretending anymore. My plate was a syrup-soaked mess, and Sully had refilled my coffee enough to make my pulse hum. Sleep was a lost cause. Maddy had just declared Carrick’s brooding a controlled substance when the mood shifted—not abruptly, but with the hush of a room losing its noise.
She leaned back, fingers curled around her mug. “The first night I got here, I barely slept. Only ate because Sully forced the issue. I was scared, confused, and being shoved into a house with four strange men didn’t help.”
The laughter softened. Not gone—just gentled. Niko didn’t move, but his attention sharpened. Deacon stayed still, but leaned in without leaning in. Carrick didn’t flinch, but his mug paused mid-air.
“I didn’t trust them,” Maddy continued, her voice steady. “Didn’t trust the process. I was scared. Angry. And every time I closed my eyes, I expected someone to break down that door and finish what they’d started.”
Her eyes found mine—not invasive or pitying. Just open. “It took me a while to come downstairs. To eat much. To speak. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
I didn’t say anything. Didn’t nod. Didn’t blink. My throat was tight enough already.
“But one night,” she said, her smile pulling sideways like it couldn’t decide if it was real or not, “I came into the kitchen and found Jax using a butter knife to take apart the microwave.”
“It was overheating,” Jax muttered into his fork, unfazed. “The transformer’s thermal fuse was misaligned, and the interlock switch was acting like it had a superiority complex.”
I blinked. “The what was what?”
“It’s the tiny component that cuts power when the door’s open,” he explained with a shrug, like this was a perfectly normal mealtime topic. “But if it misfires, it trips the system. Honestly, it’s more about overzealous design than user error.”
Sully groaned and waved a piece of pancake in his direction like a flag. “He means he broke it.”
“I did not,” Jax protested. “I liberated it from its limitations.”
Maddy grinned. “And that’s when I realized they weren’t just security detail. They were human. Weird. Brilliant. Deeply chaotic. But human.”
I didn’t respond. Just stared at the sticky ring of coffee on the table and tried to breathe through the lump in my throat. The panic wasn’t sharp—it didn’t claw or bite. It sat heavy. Like gravity had shifted.
Carrick was the one who broke the quiet, his voice dry but edged with something that didn’t quite qualify as teasing. “What about you, Bellamy? Got any dramatic meet-cute stories involving household appliances?”
I snorted. “I once knocked out a guy with a torque wrench. Does that count?”
Maddy perked up. “I like her.”
“You missed the follow-up,” I said. “He fell into a tire rack and took out a full row of hubcaps on the way down. Sounded like someone crashing a xylophone.”
Deacon chuckled—low and unexpected. “That’s oddly specific.”
“Trauma’s a great memory enhancer,” I deadpanned.
Carrick tilted his head. “So that’s why you came to the garage today?”
“No,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “I came to the garage because I needed to do something. Sitting still makes me feel like I’m waiting to die.”
That landed heavier than I intended, but no one flinched.
“And the smell of engine oil and citrus solvent is oddly comforting,” I added, trying to soften the edges.
Carrick’s mouth twitched. “Smells like competence.”
“Smells like home,” I replied, surprising myself. “Or what home should feel like.”
There was a beat. Not awkward, but charged.
